BRITISH TREES THAT ARE HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD.

BRITISH TREES THAT ARE HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD. I noted in my post of a couple of days ago that Oliver Rackham, the woodland archaeologist, believed that one 500 hundred year oak could not be replaced by thousands of young trees. Rackham was expressing ideas about existing trees. Britain has preserved trees that are hundreds of years old, and many of them have names. On March 27 the Telegraph posted a gallery of pictures of Britain’s ancient forests. The comments discuss some of the ways the forests were managed—including by pollarding and coppicing—over a period of over 1000 years.

Photo number 1 shows the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, which is between 800 and 1000 years old. The photo also shows the scaffolding which has supported the limbs of the Major Oak since Victorian times. Number 2 shows the Big Belly Oak, over 1000 years old, and recently fitted with a metal corset to keep it from splitting. Number 3 shows the King of Limbs, a 1,000-year-old pollarded oak. Number 8 shows Highgate Wood. The comment says that “Between the 16th and 18th centuries it was leased in parcels to private tenants for coppicing.”